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Thursday, August 23, 2012

Piles of Pillows!

Who doesn't love making forts out of cushions and mountains out of pillows?!

Let's gather some supplies. Today all you need are all the pillows and cushions you can find. Toss them in a big pile and you're ready to roll.

We made cushion forts to hide in and destroy. We made stair-stepped piles to practice climbing.

And then we just lined them all up like dominoes and let Erik go to town. This was maybe his favorite part! Something about knocking down those big cushions was just extremely satisfying.

And don't forget the hide and seek!

Dad got involved a little bit, but mostly he just relaxed in the arm chair and took the pictures.

Okay, so I think we can all agree that this looks like fun, but where does the learning come in? At this age, one of the big things a kid needs to work on is gross motor development. Crawling and walking are some of the big goals/obstacles at this age and anything you can do to encourage the development of strength, agility, and coordination helps to move the child towards these milestones. This activity also helps a child to become more familiar with the space around them as they analyze questions like "Will I fit into that gap between the cushions?", "Am I strong enough to move that pile of pillows?", or "What happens when I push over this pile?".